Pandora has launched genre sponsorships in Australia.

More than 20 genres with 200+ stations are now available to sponsor, providing advertisers with the opportunity to reach listeners through specially curated ‘music moments’ on Pandora.

This offering was first introduced in the US in 2012 and has driven strong results for US advertisers.

The genres sponsorships available include ‘Love Songs’, ‘Workout’, ‘Wind Down’, ‘Driving’, ‘Gaming’, ‘New Music’ and ‘Women in Music’ among others, and appeal to specific listener occasions.

Brands will have the opportunity to own entire genres, which are made up of a number of stations, and will own every ad break within them.

These sponsorships create a premium, limited-interruption listening experience, delighting listeners with half the interruptions, courtesy of their brand sponsor. This uncluttered environment offers high engagement and gives brands the opportunity to reach listeners contextually to build brand association. A study conducted in the US based on product performance level norms showed that genre sponsorships can provide a 73% lift in brand message association for sponsors*.

“Our genre sponsorships give advertisers deep targeting opportunities through the ability to engage listeners at the most relevant and impactful time. Whether it is a sportswear retailer or healthcare provider targeting people while they workout, or a clothing brand targeting people getting ready for Christmas, the ability to engage people with a tailored message in context is extremely powerful,” Pandora Commercial Director ANZ, Chris Freel, said.

The personally-curated Pandora genre stations attract high time spent listening and offer advertisers 100% share of voice across each of the stations for one month. The ‘Wind Down’ genre, for example, has an average daily time spent listening of 1 hour 18 minutes with 70% of its listeners in the key buying demographic of 25-54 year olds. Pandora also taps into listener habits to reach the consumer at the right time. Understanding that one in two Pandora users listen whilst they cook/eat^, Pandora offers advertisers the opportunity to reach listeners through the ‘Cooking/Dinner Party’ genre which has an average daily listening of 1 hour 4 minutes.

A recent campaign for a brand in the healthcare sector saw its ‘Workout’ genre station takeover accumulate more than 6 million song spins and delivered almost 400,000 hours of listening across the campaign that ran for 1.5 months.

“We have already had strong interest from advertisers, following our first successful campaign for the Workout genre sponsorship, and feedback from Pandora users has been really positive,” Freel said.